Why you should hire remote employees

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Why you should hire remote employees

Hiring remotely can help accelerate your business, whether new or established, in a number of ways.

We used to meet colleagues at the office and have meetings around tables. Today, with the myriad apps that allow us to communicate and work with anyone, it’s not the most effective way of doing things.

The office isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and many appreciate the social element of being in one place. The reality is, we’re all working remotely now anyway:

Different teams sit in different corners.

We use online tools to collaborate throughout the day.

We open up new offices in new locations to serve new customers.

Remote working is—and always was—inevitable. And today, it’s the secret ingredient behind some of the most successful products—built by people hired from all around the world, working out of coffee shops, parks and other inspiring places.

Here’s why you should consider this approach when looking out for new employees, based on our company’s experience.

It’s easier and faster to hire remotely.

It’s easy to look up each person’s profile online and explore their past achievements or what they’re working on now—and experienced remote workers will usually have detailed websites and portfolios. You can also find employees by posting an offer on remote job listings, or through Pilot.

When seeking the right person, there’s usually no time to wait for her to get to work—and moving home is a huge time sink for employees that have to relocate.

You get access to the best people in the industry.

If you restrict your search to one particular area, or demand all applicants to relocate, you’re going to dramatically narrow your results. By choosing to hire remote employees, you expose your business to a broader pool of talent.

It’s a scalable approach that suits big and small businesses.

Moving an in-house team every 6–12 months is expensive and labour-intensive. With a remote team, you’ll never outgrow your office. And with the right culture, remote employees can feel just as close as the ones next to you, but function in a much more convenient way.

Remote employees are more cost–effective.

Filling a role yourself might cost you $7000 on average, and over twice that if you use an external recruiter. That’s a massive expense for cash-poor startups, and, if you choose to rely on a recruitment agency, the results may be disappointing—many top designers and engineers simply don’t work with them.

On top of that, if you decide to hire remote contractors, you’ll also avoid the common recipe for distraction: holidays, benefits and stock options.

Working remotely isn’t an experiment anymore—it’s serious business. The sooner you start taking up remote employees, the better they will help you focus on the vision of the product, and not how it’s put together.